Binyam Mohamed torture allegations must be disclosed, day judges

David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, has lost his appeal court bid to
prevent judges disclosing secret information relating to torture allegations
in the case of Binyam Mohamed.

Binyam MohamedPhoto: AP

9:54AM GMT 10 Feb 2010

The former Guantanamo Bay detainee says he was tortured in Pakistan while held by the CIA, with the knowledge of the British.

Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones want to disclose summaries of information held by the British security services.

Mr Miliband, branded them ''irresponsible'' in an unprecedented attack on the judiciary, but today three of the country's highest-ranking judges rejected both the minister's accusations and his appeal.

Mr Miliband said in a statement: "The Government accepts the decision of the Court of Appeal that, in the light of disclosures in the US court, it should publish the seven paragraphs at issue in the case of Binyam Mohamed.

"At the heart of this case was the principle that if a country shares intelligence with another, that country must agree before its intelligence is released.

Related Articles

"This 'control principle' is essential to the intelligence relationship between Britain and the US. The Government fought the case to preserve this principle, and today's judgment upholds it.

"It agreed that the control principle is integral to intelligence sharing. The court has today ordered the publication of the seven paragraphs because in its view their substance had been put into the public domain by a decision of a US court in another case.

"Without that disclosure, it is clear that the Court of Appeal would have overturned the Divisional Court's decision to publish the material.

"The Government has made sustained and successful efforts to ensure Mr Mohamed's legal counsel had full access to the material in question.

"We remain determined to uphold our very strong commitment against mistreatment of any kind."

The ruling was a vindication of the stance taken by Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones in what was an unprecedented attack by a Government minister on the senior judiciary.

The Appeal Court agreed that the secret information contained in seven paragraphs, which had to be redacted from High Court judgments already handed down by the judges, should now be reinstated.

One of the key paragraphs stated that the reported treatment of Mr Mohamed "could readily be contended to be at the very least cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of Binyam Mohamed by the United States authorities".

Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said a public inquiry was now "inescapable".

She said: "It has been clear for over a year that the Foreign Office has been more concerned with saving face than exposing torture. These embarrassing paragraphs reveal nothing of use to terrorists but they do show something of the UK government's complicity with the most shameful part of the war on terror.

"The Government has gone to extraordinary lengths to cover up kidnap and torture. A full public inquiry is now inescapable."